When I was young, I had a Jennings J22. I never could get it to shoot more than 3 rounds at a time, before it was jammed. I had a Stainless Mark II Target at the time also, so I sold the Jennings and never looked back. I have thought about that little pistol, from time to time, thinking how great a reliable 22 pistol of that size would be. I decided I would like to have another 22 micro pistol, so the search was on. I found the Beretta 21a, and the Taurus PT-22. I know there are others, but decided that one of the two mentioned pistols would be what I would end up with, since they are both from major manufacturers, and because I was intrigued by the "Tip Up" barrel design. I read reviews of each, and was disappointed that neither had a stellar reputation as far as reliable functioning. Then I stumbled onto the Taurus PLY-22. It is a redesign of the PT-22 with a polymer frame. It has an 8 shot magazine, a manual safety, a magazine disconnect, and second strike capability. I decided from the positive reviews, that I would order one, since none of my local shops had any in stock. I got the Stainless version, and there is a blued model also. I hadnt heard from the gun shop I ordered it from for a few days, so this morning, I decided to go in and see what was happening. When I walked in, it was sitting on the counter, waiting for me. I did the paperwork and went straight to the range. When I got there, I ran a soaked patch, and then a dry patch down the barrel, and loaded up the magazine with Mini Mags. An hour later, I was very pleased. I had shot 200 rounds thru the little Taurus, and it functioned PERFECTLY. I had some other 22 ammo in the bag, so I decided to try it. I shot Remington Golden, and CCI Blazer Bulk. All shot without any failures of any kind. Total round count was 380 and no troubles at all. This little pistol is a joy... no slide to manipulate, easy to see if its loaded, very accurate at 7 yards, smooth DAO trigger, and its a looker also. I had 2 shooters come ask what I had, and to shoot it. They both were impressed, and both said they would like to own one of these little Taurus pistols. I field stripped it when I got home, and I see no signs of any wear. Sure is easy to clean the barrel. I held it all afternoon, looking at it from different angles, and enjoying the way it feels, and operates. It wont be a carry gun, simply a toy. I would never carry a 22 for Self Defense, but I guess it would make a good BUG. My wife will like it, because she wont have to rack the slide to charge it. Thats the beauty of a "Tip Up". Im getting up early tomorrow, and going back to the range, to burn some more ammo thru my new little friend.

Great looking palm pistol, weblance - congrats! Keep us posted on the reliability.

rob i - that would be the 950 Jetfire, correct? From what I understand, the 950 was replaced by the Beretta 21A Bobcat (which also inspired the Taurus PLY-22). The 21A is available in both .22LR and .25ACP. From what I gather, the .22LR version is ammo finicky, but performs best with higher velocity rounds. The .25ACP is better in those regards.

Bonefamily, the 950 Jetfire was (is?) available in .25ACP or .22Short, it never was available in .22LR. I had a long barreled 950BS, I think that it was 3 1/2", it was a fun gun to shoot; I would still have it except my son talked me out of it.

Thanks for the added info, damienph. Sorry, I wasn't very clear in my post - yes, the 950 Jetfire was available in .25ACP and .22Short. It was produced from 1952~2003. The 21A which remains in production (since 1984) keeps Beretta's palm gun alive after the 950 was discontinued. I'm thinking they didn't see the need to keep two very similar sized .25ACP's and done away with one of them.

I shot it some more today, and I learned something. First, its excellent as far as feed and eject. It has fed and ejected every single round I have loaded into it. This has been CCI Stingers, Velocitors, Mini Mags, Blazer bulk, Remington Golden, Remington Yellow Jackets and Vipers. The total round count is now 620 and it has been perfect. I had some fail to fire problems, but a second strike would always fire the cartridge. I realized that I was the cause of the misfires. I was staging the trigger, trying to get the best accuracy out of this little pistol. I think staging it, causes the hammer to not get as much energy going, to fire the round. If I pulled the trigger briskly, I never had a misfire. The gun is Double Action Only, so there is no real way to extract Single Action accuracy from it, and it wasnt designed for this. Keeping this in mind, its a great little pistol. I am very pleased with its performance.

NOTE: it is NOT my intention to sour anyone's love for their pistol. Truly. I simply want to share my experience purely with the idea that knowledge is power and it might be helpful to anyone who reads it.

I was loaned a pre-polymer Taurus PT-22 with the pretty rosewood grips that wouldn't run properly to try and investigate. Gun was sold new in November, '06. Had about 1,000 rounds through it.

I found that while the pistol was designed to have two of those little "fingers" contacting the underside of the slide to impart recoil spring power, one was NOT there. In carefully removing the grip panels, I found the one on the left side had broken off and the top 20% was missing. As a result, the slide was returning to battery with only 50% of it's designed spring power and the pistol was lucky to make two consecutive shots without failing.

I called Taurus and asked for them to please send me the part as I wasn't interested in sending them the pistol. She agreed if I gave her the serial number of the gun, which I did. Then-- I asked her very nicely if she could simply send me two of them, since it was such a small, basic part -- it would have to have been low in cost. And she did, they arrived in plain envelope in the mail VERY quickly. I was happy with Taurus' service in this instance. (the only time I've used Taurus' service)

Install was very easy. Took the pistol out on the next range day. It ate 75 rounds and though it failed to fire a couple, it lit them on second strike. Otherwise, it ran fine. Took out again on the next range trip and fed it nearly 200 rounds -- and though the trigger really wore me down, I was more than impressed with the accuracy I could wring out from this tiny little barrel.

With only a few rounds left, it snapped the brand new recoil lever that I had just installed from Taurus. It did not snap the other original one -- it snapped the brand new one.

Went home, installed the OTHER new part that Taurus sent me, gave it back to the owner and told him everything I knew and he then took it to the local big gun store and traded it toward another gun.

Bottom line: please remove your grip panels, carefully, and get a look at the design of these recoil spring levers. Get to know what they look like when they are working and keep in mind that unless Taurus has altered or "evolved" the design, this seems to be an inherently weak point.

I've only had experience with the one single pistol, maybe this is NOT a problem across the board. With mine, maybe the spring was out of spec and that helped it to munch the two levers. While I am not an engineer nor gun designer, I take one look at design of these levers and it just seems like it's asking a very small part to take an extreme amount of stress. I don't think it's a strong design.

I hope all your pistols keep running!

__________________Attention Brass rats and other reloaders: I really need .327 Federal Magnum brass, no lot size too small. Tell me what caliber you need and I'll see what I have to swap. PM me and we'll discuss.

I have read every post about the original Taurus PT 22 I could find, and was not thrilled about the problems people were posting about performance and durability. Granted the new POLY PT22 has only been out for a year or two, but I now have over 1,000 rounds thru mine, and while that isnt many, I have been very happy. The POLY is a redesign and from what I have read, is a big improvement over the older PT22. Many people commented that there were problems with their standard PT22s with low round counts. I like this size/style pistol so much, I ordered a new Beretta Bobcat Inox .22 this morning. I like the idea that the Beretta is SA/DA, and will enjoy comparing the Poly PT22 and the Beretta Bobcat.

Thanks for the excellent review. As a matter of fact, I was just looking at my local store yesterday for a micro-sized .22LR. I hadn't even considered a Taurus before now, but will have to check those out next time I see one. Thanks for the info.

Congratulations!! I really like the look of that gun. I just picked up a very similar looking beretta jetfire, though mine is 25acp. Gotta love the little pocket pistols.

I have both a Bobcat 21A and a PT25 in .25acp from many years back. Like many, I'm actually quite fond of JMB's little .25acp round but find the price per box now to be prohibitive--I do, however, frequently carry them as a BUG as I bought a few boxes of .25acp back when it was quite a bit less expensive (old ammo is still good ammo if properly maintained).

I have both said models in .22lr as well (I have a small mouse-gun collection which I find people either love or hate ) and they function 100% with HV ammo. Conversely, I have found that my .25acp's run with any ammo I have tried so I think the .25 cycles a bit more reliably than the .22lr (but not enough to justify getting a 25 over a 22lr when you consider the downside to .25acp ammo). I practice with the .22lr models and not with the .25's due to ammo savings and there's no difference so to speak in recoil.

BTW, my PT22/25 are the older all-metal models and that new poly model looks both sweet and quite capable (I gotta get one of those!).

__________________NRA Life Member
“A free people ought...to be armed..."
―George Washington

I have read every post about the original Taurus PT 22 I could find, and was not thrilled about the problems people were posting about performance and durability. Granted the new POLY PT22 has only been out for a year or two, but I now have over 1,000 rounds thru mine, and while that isnt many, I have been very happy. The POLY is a redesign and from what I have read, is a big improvement over the older PT22. Many people commented that there were problems with their standard PT22s with low round counts. I like this size/style pistol so much, I ordered a new Beretta Bobcat Inox .22 this morning. I like the idea that the Beretta is SA/DA, and will enjoy comparing the Poly PT22 and the Beretta Bobcat.

Weblance - Have you received your Beretta 21A yet? I am curious to hear your comparisons of it to the Taurus PLY-22...

I have read every post about the original Taurus PT 22 I could find, and was not thrilled about the problems people were posting about performance and durability. Granted the new POLY PT22 has only been out for a year or two, but I now have over 1,000 rounds thru mine, and while that isnt many, I have been very happy. The POLY is a redesign and from what I have read, is a big improvement over the older PT22. Many people commented that there were problems with their standard PT22s with low round counts. I like this size/style pistol so much, I ordered a new Beretta Bobcat Inox .22 this morning. I like the idea that the Beretta is SA/DA, and will enjoy comparing the Poly PT22 and the Beretta Bobcat.

Weblance - Have you received your Beretta 21A yet? I am curious to hear your comparisons of it to the Taurus PLY-22...

Interesting--I have been thinking about the Taurus PLY-22 (or .25acp if ammo weren't so ridiculously HIGH). As a "mouse-gun-afficionado" I have both the Beretta 21A and PT-22/25 and would like to add the PLY model just because.

Definitely looking forward to the PLY and "old-style" comparison.

-Happy Holidays

__________________NRA Life Member
“A free people ought...to be armed..."
―George Washington

I know this post is 4 months old but I did a search for a PT22 on here and this was the best thread I found. My wife and I were at a local gun shop yesterday, actually went to get her a Walther P22 that she liked but she was doing her own thing looking at different guns. I think it helped that there was a woman behind the counter helping us/her too. But she finds this PT-22 that she likes. I have seen these guns but never really looked at them much. Plus they had an LCP for 300 bucks that I wanted. Long story short, we left with a nice little Taurus PT-22 and an LCP. Since each gun was cheaper than the Walther that we went to get. I haven't shot the PT yet but it seems to be a nice little piece.
Hers is blued with the wood grips and the gold trim.

I have several Taurus mouse-guns (as well as others as they are addictive). Mine shoot great using most quality ammo brands but love the hot stuff in particular (CCI and Aguila HV). So for the range it really doesn't matter too much what you use, but for any defensive role like BUG or the like I would solely use the HV stuff absent any doubt.

__________________NRA Life Member
“A free people ought...to be armed..."
―George Washington

Chris... Is your PT22 the one like mine, or the one like PT-92 shows just above this post? There have been reports of issues with the older style, that PT-92 shows. Something about a plastic bushing that breaks. Im not certain... you might want to search for that info and see what you can find out. The issue was fixed in the redesign and reissue of the POLY PT-22. Also, when shooting the PT-22, Keep count of your rounds, and try not to pull the trigger on an empty chamber. Shoot the 8, or 9 rounds in the pistol, and stop. Dont pull the trigger on the empty chamber. The firing pin WILL hit the breech face on these pistols, and put a dent in the breech. It isnt good on the firing pin and will eventually cause problems. My Beretta 21a is the same way. My little POLY PT-22 has been a great little pistol, very much worth the $200 I gave for it. Its accurate, fun to shoot, and a nice looking little pea shooter.

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